Peeking through Yahoo! Sports, I stumbled across this interesting gem from AP sports writer Dave Campbell, and thought it might be interesting to discuss.  Details below...

The gist:  It seems DeMaurice Smith is suddenly jumping in as a lawyer for the players, in order in force himself into any mediation between the league and the players, whether it be the federal mediation that the NFL wants or the court mediation that the NFLPA wants.  Seriously, though, are the NFLPA going out of their way to prove the NFL's case for them to the NLRB?  Appointing the union head of the "trade association" as a lawyer so that he can be part of the mediation seems just so incredibly wrong, at least to me -- it's yet further proof that the union decertification is a total sham, which should put their antitrust lawsuit in jeopardy, by all rights.

Seriously, something like this should have the owners just about jumping for joy.  Left and right, it seems, the NFLPA have continued to miscalculate in how they have consistently misrepresented the facts -- note that I'm not saying the owners aren't misrepresenting on their own, because I'm sure they have on some levels.  But the NFLPA has been so incredibly blatant about misrepresenting matters, and then being almost instantly caught in their lies and propaganda from people willing to look below the surface of their "evil owners, poor players" rhetoric.

Am I wrong here in thinking that this is yet another screwup by the NFLPA?  I don't see how it's a smart decision in regards to having to contend with the league's contention of the decertification as a sham tactic to try and strong-arm the owners into giving the players what they want.